The party was gathered in the mysterious snake god temple, having killed the serpents and freed Zuran, the prisoner. Their inevitable curiosity got the better of them and they began poking, prodding and searching around the statue of the Snake God. Wilbered knocked over the two flaming braziers, spilling hot coals on the floor, and urinated upon the statue.
While they were thus engaged, the great bronze door of the temple opened and a woman in a red cloak and hood, wearing a silver mask, a robe and a jeweled necklace, stepped into the entrance. Her hands moved in cabalistic gestures; clearly she was casting a spell. Another creature or creatures could be seen moving around in the darkness behind her. Since her gestures indicated hostile intent, the players immediately sprang to attack. The bard and the elf cast cause fear and scare spells without effect. The monk ran forward and began his attack as the door of the temple opened further and admitted a huge snake with a human like torso, snake head and scimitar who also began swaying and weaving his hands in a spell.
As Mace the fighter mover forward to attack, his armor and clothing suddenly collapsed in a heap on the floor; Mace had apparently vanished right out of his clothes! Red and Blue, the peasants recently rescued from the monkey men, went and cowered in a corner.
The battle was joined in earnest. Kane, Castor, Malus and Zuran tried to form up a front line and prevent the attackers from entering the room. The woman in the robe reached up and pulled off her mask and threw back her hood, revealing a hideous face and snake-like hair. Upon gazing at her face, Kane and Malus turned to stone! A round later, Castor turned to stone as well. A Cause Fear spell put the snake man to flight. In desperation, Red and Blue (the peasants) snatched up their short swords and attacked. Almost instantly, Red was turned to stone by the medusa's gaze.
Although half of the party had been petrified, magic missiles from Trygvie as well as conventional attacks from Zuran, Blue and the others began to take their toll upon the Medusa. Covered with wounds, she turned to flee. Before she could disappear into the mists, however, Trygvie launched a Fireball and killed the monster. Zuran and Trygvie ran out to plunder the body while the cleric searched through the pile of armor and clothes (which was all that remained of Mace) and found a toad. Assuming that Mace had been Polymorphed into the toad form by some sort of spell, Wilbered tried a Dispel Magic to turn him back to his natural form but it failed. With many a joke at Mace's expense, Wilbered placed the toad into his pocket.
Inspecting the crispy corpse of the Medusa, the players removed a silver mask, a jeweled necklace, a jeweled dagger, and a bow and arrows. They redistributed this wealth among the remaining party members and Zuran armed himself with Mace's gear. After resting, they dragged the statues of Kane, Castor and Malus to the amphitheater that they had used to enter the valley of the shrines, intending to carry the statues all of the way back to Nudlo. Unfortunately, this proved so exhausting that they decided to leave the statues on the stage in the amphitheater arranged so that they would hopefully not seem too out of place to the casual observer. They left the statue of "Red" standing in the entrance of the temple in hopes of frightening someone.
After they had
consulted their map
of the valley of the shrines, the remaining players decided to
travel north in the valley to a small "village" that was marked there
and hopefully find a magical solution to restore their companions.
They pressed on through the trees and vines, following the path,
and came upon some crumbled stone walls. In the near distance
they could see a large, flat topped pyramid which caught their
interest. Moving through the rubble and weeds, the party
approached the pyramid. They spotted a number of hump-backed
anthropomorphic frogs of approximately human size hunkered down in some
reeds at the base of the pyramid. Wilbered held up the toad in
what he hoped was a gesture of friendship. As they approached,
the frogmen hurled spears at them so Trygvie let loose with another Fireball,
instantly killing all of them.The pyramid was about 50 feet tall and 50 feet square with a flattened top and a set of steep stairs leading up the face. The players climbed the stairs and found a platform at the top with a square stone altar and a large stone statue of a toad. Always interested in fooling around with altars, Wilbered the cleric placed Mace the Toad upon the altar. Mace, apparently tired of the whimsical cleric's shenanigans, hopped over to the other edge of the altar and croaked at Blue. Blue scooped up the toad and placed him in his pocket while Wilbered protested. The searched the top of the pyramid and found nothing of interest there, so they returned to the base of the pyramid and continued along to the village.
While climbing through the rubble of a ruined building, the players saw a number of figures in the fog on the road coming towards them. The players tried (without success) to hide themselves in the rubble. A group of orcs and half orcs, led by a dour looking human in black armor with a morningstar and a horned silver skull emblazoned on his chest walked by, shooting them dirty looks as they cowered in the rubble.
The players picked themselves up, dusted off and proceeded north until they arrived at a tall wooden palisade with a huge wooden gate. Above the gate was a large sign saying "Guido's Fort." Beside the gate was a large sign written in common that said, "Lord Guido bids you welcome; pay the Ogre 5 gps to enter." Beside the gate stood a particularly ugly ogre with a huge hammer. Trygvie gave him five gold coins and after carefully counting them, the ogre opened the gate and let them in.
Inside the gate, the characters saw a large stone tower surrounded by various small huts and tents, a few wagons and other hovels. Orcs, half orcs, humans and other unsavory critters scuttled hither and yon in the ruins. One slightly less decrepit looking building near the gate had a sign that read, "The Lion's Den." From the fog in the distance the players could hear the sound of cheering. The players approached "The Lion's Den" and entered, finding themselves in a dingy taproom. A few halforcs in well worn armor were swilling ale by the bar while a man in a green cloak and robe sat at one end of the room with a few rough looking companions. A man in a black cloak with a large silver medal shaped like a skull with horns sat at the other end of the room sipping wine. After buying a drink and renting a room from the one eyed barkeep, Wilbered approached the Barkeep and asked if there were any clerics about. The barkeep said, "There's clerics all over this town! Like him!" and he gestured quickly at the man in black. Wilbered bought the man a glass of wine and attempted to approach him and inquire as to his services. The man in black seemed rather standoffish and when Wilbered tried to press him on the issue of his availability and level of expertise in spell casting, he clearly grew impatient and turned back to his wine, demanding that Wilbered leave him alone. The party tried the same with the fellow in the green cloak across the room with a similar result. Crestfallen, the cleric retreated to his room where they spent the night.
The next morning, having recovered his powers through rest, Wilbered cast Dispel Magic on the toad. Almost instantly the small toad was replaced with a full sized, naked and angry Mace who ran over and popped the cleric in the mouth. Apparently people who are polymorphed into toads and frogs DO remember what their "friends" did and said while they were polymorphed.
After tempers cooled and Mace got dressed, the players asked the bartender where they might find a cleric. He told them they might inquire at the tower for a fellow named "Numen" so they proceeded out the door and to the tower. The door was guarded by two burly looking guards in well worn armor who extorted a few gold pieces out of Mace as a bribe. After some shenanigans at the gate which tried their patience, the players were ushered into the presence of the same black cloaked cleric that Wilbered had seemingly alienated the night before. Mace apologized for Wilbered's rudeness the night before and attempted to talk Numen into selling them a scroll of the Break Enchantment spell. In the course of their conversation, the players learned that there were several factions in the valley -- some of whom wore green cloaks and followed Tsathogga, and some who wore black and followed some other god. Numen was apparently one of the second category. Mace told Numen that he and his companions were enemies of the Tsathoggites and Numen responded by telling him that a truce between the factions had been declared with the walls of Guido's Fort; any who violated the truce suffered the consequences. After listening for a while, Numen became more interested when it was revealed that they were prepared to offer him a wand of See Invisibility as well as gold and told them they should return that night when he would be able to tell them if he had a scroll available. "Come back tonight," he said, "and bring the gold and the wand."
Not knowing what else to do, the players went back outside. They wandered around the village a bit and came to a small smithy run by a group of grubby looking gnomes where they bought some armor and weapons at outrageous prices. Some cheering from off in the fog caught their attention and they wandered towards the sound, through the muddy streets of the town, eventually coming upon a ramshackle looking stadium decorated with human, demihuman, subhuman and animal and monster skulls. Gladiator games were apparently happening inside and after grumbling about the admission prices, the players entered and watched halforcs killing frog men, frogmen killing beastmen, human slaves getting torn up in various disgusting ways, etc. Wilbered bet a couple of gold pieces and lost.
After several hours of this sort of thing, the players returned to the tower and were ushered back into Numen's presence. Numen asked them to leave the wand and 1000 gold and he would deliver the scroll to them tomorrow. The players agreed to leave Numen the wand but said they would deliver the gold upon delivery; a term that Numen agreed to. Numen told them that the scroll would be available late tomorrow.
They returned to the Lion's Den Inn and the spell casters went to bed to rest and regain spells while Mace and Zuran elected to head back downstairs and check out the nightlife. There they found the usual crowd of hustlers, losers, mercenaries and other ill assorted riffraff. A crowd of black cloaked people stood at one end of the bar and a crowd of green robed people stood at the other; and these two groups were darting dirty looks at one another. Suddenly Mace recognized a tall man in a black cloak trimmed in red with a pointed beard who stood talking to some of the green robed people. This man was some sort of spellcaster who had attacked them way back in Feldspar and had turned Wilbered into a rabbit. Somewhat unnerved by this, Mace went back up to his room, hoping he had not been recognized.
As soon as he heard this, Wilbered cast a Locate Object spell before going to bed in hopes of locating the Wand of Healing that Sister Sahrahl of Saint Meinrad's had given him back in Feldspar. The spell indicated that the wand was somewhere to the north of their current position; in the general direction of the tower, leading Wilbered to speculate that Cirdis, their old enemy, was in the tower.
The session ended here.